Institutions

Charles University in Prague (Faculty of Humanities, Department of Germanic Studies)

The Department of Germanic Studies (Ústav germánských studií) at the Faculty of Humanities of the Charles University in Prague (Univerzita Karlova v Praze) conducts research on Germanic languages ​(German, Nordic languages, Dutch), literature and culture. The main research areas in Germanic Linguistics are corpus linguistics and sociolinguistics and in German Literary Studies the German literature of Prague and German-Bohemian literature. Students in the Germanic section can complete bachelor and master programs in “German Language and Literature.” In cooperation with the University of Cologne a double-degree master program entitled “German-Language Literature and Central (Eastern) European Cultural Space” is planned. The department has two professors (Milan Tvrdík and Manfred Weinberg), one lecturer with the status of “docent” (equivalent to the German habilitation: Marie Vachková), eleven other assistant researchers and about 200 students. Since September 2011 Dr. Vít Dovalil is the head of the department. Within the Faculty of Humanities of the Charles University and the framework of the “Prague Centre for Jewish Studies” the Department of Germanic Studies cooperates with other departments.

The most important current project is the establishment of a research center for German-Bohemian literature. In cooperation with the Department of Slavic Studies at the University of Tübingen, an international and interdisciplinary research association “Prague as an Intersection of European Modernities” has been founded (Head: Prof. Irina Wutsdorff / Tübingen, Prof. Manfred Weinberg, Štěpán Zbytovský, Ph.D. / Prague).

The Department of Germanic Studies works in close cooperation with other universities including Konstanz, Cologne, Hamburg, Munich, Leipzig, Vienna and Luxembourg. In addition to the Germanic institutions at the universities in Brno, Olomouc (Czech Republic) and Wroclaw (Poland) it is part of the DAAD-funded German literary postgraduate school “Concepts of Contemporary Literary Theories and Methods” which has been conceptualized by the University of Konstanz.

Manfred Weinberg studied German Philology, Biology, Philosophy and Pedagogy at the University of Bonn, graduating in 1992 with a dissertation on Hubert Fichte (Akut. Geschichte. Struktur., 1993 [Acute. History. Structure.]). He conducted hispostdoctoral work at the Graduate College entitled Theorie der Literatur [Theory of Literature] of the University of Konstanz. After that he was scientific coordinator of the Special Research Project 511 funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) called Literatur und Anthropologie [Literature and Anthropology] (1996–2001) and the Forschungszentrum für den wissenschaftlichen Nachwuchs [Research Center for Young Academics] (2001–2003), as well as substitute professor at the chairs of Prof. Dr. Gerhart von Graevenitz and Prof. Dr. Albrecht Koschorke (2003–2010). In 2001 he completed his habilitation on recollection/memory (“Das unendliche Thema” / [The Neverending Issue] (2006)). In 2006 he was appointed adjunct professor. Since September 2010 he has the professorship of Modern German Literature at the Charles University in Prague (as a DAAD long-term lecturer) and since September 2011 he holds the position as deputy head of the Department of Germanic Studies at the Charles University Prague. He is a member of the Academic Advisory Board of the Zeitschrift für interkulturelle Germansitik[Journal of Intercultural German Studies] as well as of the Arbeitsstelle für deutsch-mährische Literatur [Research Centre for German-Moravian Literature] at the Palacký University Olomouc; co-editor of a journal entitled Interkulturalität. Studien zu Sprache, Literatur und Gesellschaft[Interculturality. Studies on Language, Literature and Society]. Together with Irina Wutsdorff (University of Tübingen) et al. he is the head of the international and interdisciplinary research network called Prag als Knotenpunkt der europäischen Modernen [Prague as Intersection of European Modernities].

Štěpán Zbytovský studied German Studies and Protestant Theology at Charles University in Prague. In 2009 he graduated with a conjoint-degree from Prague and Konstanz with a doctoral thesis on the function of mythological narratives in the context of literary reflexion of history, especially in Hermann Kasack’s and Arno Schmidt’s works entitled Mythology and History: Studies on the Literature of German Romanticism and Postwar Period (1945-1953). Since February 2009 he is employed at the Institute of Germanic Studies at Charles University and the deputy director since summer 2013. His teaching and research interests include: introduction to literary science, history of German-speaking literature in Bohemia and interaction concepts between German-speaking culture and Czech culture in Bohemia. He regularly offers seminars on theory and praxis of literary translation.

The Collegium Bohemicum, located in Ústí nad Labem in the Czech Republic is a nonprofit cultural, educational and scientific association which is dedicated to German-Czech relations and the cultural heritage of the German-speaking population of the Bohemian lands. It organises and supports German-Czech cultural events (specifically the annual trans-border festival called Czech-German Cultural Days), is active in conducting research (arranging seminars and lectures, supporting research projects, disseminating calls for stipends) and leads educational projects (lately especially the School of Democracy and the witness-to-history project called History Connects). In cooperation with the museum of the city Ústí nad Labem it is preparing a permanent exhibit on the history of the German-speaking population of the Bohemian lands. Under the leadership of Blanka Mouralová, the Collegium Bohemicum works with a number of Czech researchers (Prof. Milena Bartlová, Prof. Eduard Kubů, Prof. Dr. Marek Nekula amongst others), researchers from German-speaking countries (Dr. Peter Becher, Prof. Dr. Stefan Michael Newerkla, Prof. Walter Schmitz amongst others) and with international institutions (Institute for the Saxonian History and Ethnography, Robert Bosch Foundation, Brigde/Most Foundation, amongst others).

Currently a senior at the University of Jan Evangelista Purkyně in Ústi nad Labem, Czech Republic. She is studying German Philology in Intercultural Context and she is nearing the completion of her Master´s Thesis The Literature of Relocation. She has been working part time at the Faculty of Germanic Studies and at the library of her university since 2012. She has completed training with Collegium Bohemicum. In 2014 she worked on a Czech-German international project called Heute an der Grenze/Dnes na hranicích (Today on the Borders) at a Medially-Educational company.She has been a part of the international student organization GFPS (Organization for cultural and educational exchange in Central and Eastern Europe) since 2013, where she is currently on the board of directors of the Czech branch – GFPS-CZ. She replaced Mr. Koutecký as the coordinator at the European project TransStar for the Collegia Bohemica company in Ústi nad Labem in May 2015.